48 Hours - Zombies and Evil Spirits: Inside the Lori Vallow Daybell Trial

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

In our second special episode covering the Lori Vallow Daybell trial, Lori’s close friend, Melanie Gibb, takes the stand and speaks to Chad and Lori Daybell’s alleged religious beliefs. CBS News National Correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti and 48 Hours producer Richie Fetzer bring you back inside the courtroom and share insight into shocking phone calls and texts, as well as details from the detective who was present when JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan were discovered. Both Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell have pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against them. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. The state of Idaho plaintiff versus Lori Noreen Vallow, a.k.a. Lori Noreen Daybell, defendant. Welcome to another special episode of 48 Hours. I'm Jonathan Vigliotti. The murder trial of Idaho mother Lori Vallow Daybell is now in its second week. She's accused, along with her husband Chad Daybell, of the unthinkable. I'm Jonathan Vigliotti. beliefs and to steal social security funds and insurance money. Both have pleaded not guilty.

The focus of this trial will be the three killings, but Lori Daybell also faces murder conspiracy charges in Arizona connected to the 2019 shooting death of her previous husband, Charles Vallow. The perpetrator was Lori Daybell's brother, Alex Cox, who died months later as the search for JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan was underway. Despite massive interest in this trial, the judge has barred cameras from the courtroom, so our team is taking the audio from the proceedings and sharing highlights from the trial in these special episodes. Today, I'm joined by producer Richie Fetzer, who's been working with 48 Hours for almost a decade and covering this case from the start, when the children were missing but still believed to be alive. Richie, welcome.

Hi, thank you. Thanks for joining us. Let's look back at the first week of the prosecution's case. First off, last Tuesday, April 11th, there's direct questioning of Rexburg, Idaho, police detective Ray Hermosillo. What was Detective Hermosillo's role in this case? So Detective Ray Hermosillo works with the Ruxburg Police Department. He became involved in this case when he was one of the first investigators to realize that JJ and Tylee were missing. And he began to investigate Lori, Lori's husband, Chad Daybell, and Lori's brother, Alex Cox. So it was just a missing persons case.

Yeah, and this detective speaks with Chad Daybell, Lori's husband, and Alex Cox, Lori's brother, during this welfare check on JJ. That welfare check, again, instigated by Kay Woodcock, JJ's grandmother, who hadn't been able to reach JJ for months. We're going to play a clip from Detective Hermosillo as he was in court. At that point, Alex got a blank look on his face, kind of a frightened look, looked over at Chad Daybell, who was on the other side of the pickup truck. Chad then looked at Alex, and they both kind of just looked at each other

and didn't answer my question initially. Okay. What did you think about that conduct? It raised some red flags just based on the way they acted with that question. I then again asked Alex if he knew where JJ was at, and he stated that JJ was with Kay in Louisiana. What did you think of that response? I told Alex that wasn't likely because Kay was the one who called in for the welfare check.

And then again, they both kind of just looked at each other, which again raised our suspicions. So it's very interesting hearing this that, you know, Alex not being able to give an answer. And then after this, Alex even goes on to say that he doesn't have Lori, his sister's phone number. And so does Chad Daybell. So his testimony didn't stop there. We have a clip here of Detective Hermosillo testifying to prosecutors about his interaction with Chad Daybell. I asked him how he knew Lori Vallow, and he stated that he hardly met her, hardly knew her, that he had only met her a couple of times.

Okay. Was there anything suspicious to you about that response there was what was that we knew that lori vallow and chad daybell had been married two weeks prior to my contact with him okay but he said he hardly knew her that's I mean, so many red flags. That perhaps is the biggest red flag. Yeah, it makes you wonder what Chad thought the police actually knew at that point. Because obviously, at this point, it's only two weeks after he and Lori had gotten married in Hawaii. It's interesting that he didn't think anyone else knew that. And as the questioning continues, it gets very heavy, very quickly. Detective Hermosillo goes on to testify about law enforcement finding the

children's remains on Chad DeBell's property. First, he describes finding JJ. I want to just warn listeners that some might find the following details disturbing. So fast forward about two minutes or so, if you'd like to skip this next part, let's take a listen. As they began removing the top layer of soil, it began to expose three large white rocks. And at that point, uh, there was a strong odor of, uh, through my training experience. That was a decomposing body. Okay. Is that something you've smelled before? Unfortunately, yes. I can't imagine what it was like inside that courtroom. And then after that,

believe it or not, the testimony becomes even more graphic. Again, another advisory to our listeners. They continue to dig around that, what we started to call the burial site, and eventually exposed what appeared to be a small body wrapped in black plastic. The remains of J.J. Vallow, and then Detective Hermosillo goes on to describe finding Tylee's remains. Eventually, we uncovered bits and pieces of Tylee, who we assumed was Tylee, that had been burned. I mean, Richie, you listen to this. I don't know how else to describe it than just sheer terror, the state in which the remains of these two young children were found. While we don't know exactly what Lori was thinking while listening to this, what do we know about how she perhaps reacted to the detective's testimony, the gruesome descriptions of her children's remains being found. After the beginning of this testimony, there was a lunch break, and court came back and Lori wasn't in the courtroom.

So there was a moment of some confusion. Attorneys were walking in and out of the room, and then eventually she was brought back in, and her attorneys, the defense team, made a request with the judge that she be allowed to be excused from the remainder of the day because of how graphic the testimony was. So the prosecutors argued that they wanted her to be there. And ultimately, the judge agreed with the state and she had to stay for the rest of the day. Laurie had to listen to the testimony. Yeah.

for the rest of the day. Lori had to listen to the testimony. Yeah. And the testimony only got more graphic. Detective Hermosillo went on to testify more about JJ's remains. I saw a little boy in red pajamas. He had a white plastic bag around his head, several layers of duct tape from his chin to his forehead area. His arms were duct taped with several layers of duct tape. His arms were folded like this across his chest. You guys see that?

His feet were also duct-taped and bound. He had a white and blue child's blanket placed on top of him. Now, Richie, I remember, and I'm sure you have this seared into your brain as well, when this discovery was first made, when it was announced to media a few years ago. And the first thing I thought about was that duct tape, how much of it was used to wrap JJ. You don't use that much duct tape if the person is not responsive or unconscious. It definitely takes your mind to some very dark places. And inside the courtroom listening to this, there's JJ's grandfather and grandmother.

How did they respond? So it's been reported that JJ's grandfather, Larry Woodcock, was crying throughout the testimony, which is understandable. I mean, it's very graphic, and I can only imagine being someone with a close connection with this child that this is being described about. I mean, this was not an accident. This little boy didn't fall into a shallow grave in his pajamas with duct tape. Tragic.

There's no other way to put it. I think this is a good time to take a quick break. When we return, Melanie Gibbs' testimony about the end of times, zombies, evil spirits, and more. We'll be right back. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn,

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And we're back. Richie, Wednesday, April 12th, the prosecutors call a witness who works at the Madison County Jail where Lori was being held before the children's remains were found while she was facing child abandonment charges. They use this as an opportunity to play audio of a phone conversation between lori and chad why was this so striking so this testimony it's about this phone call that lori and chad had literally as investigators are in his backyard searching for the children on the property at this point they hadn't found anything yet and And you can actually hear Chad filling Lori in on what's happening. What, are they in the house? No, they're out on the property. Are they feeding, sir?

Again? They're searching. So the conversation goes on. Pray. What? What do you want me to do? Yeah, pray. Pray. What? What do you want me to do? Yeah, pray. Pray, he says.

They talk a little longer and then say goodbye. Can you set up? Should I try to call you later? Um, I don't know. I don't know. You can try, yeah. I'll answer if I can't know. You can try. Yeah. I'll ask if I can. Okay.

I love you and I'll talk soon. Okay, baby. Love you. Okay. Love you. Be nice. Now, remember, this phone call is happening as investigators are there searching the property and are about to find the children's remains in shallow graves. Chad would soon find himself under arrest too.

Richie, let's talk about Chad's late wife, Tammy. Both Chad and Lori are also charged with her murder. Tammy Daybell, a mother of five and a librarian, dies about two weeks before Chad marries Lori. Investigators were suspicious and wanted to know more about Tammy's death. So Tammy Daybell dies in October of 2019, and her remains are exhumed in December of that year. I remember when that happened, and there was a lot of questions of what they could learn at that point. And it was actually revealed or confirmed actually in this trial that the prosecutors say that she died by asphyxiation. So it's going to be interesting to see what else we learn about her case as the trial continues.

A lot happened on Wednesday. The same is true for Thursday, April 13th. Melanie Gibb, Lori's former best friend, was called to testify on that day. She testifies about the first time that she met Lori, which was in 2018. She had already been familiar with Chad Daybell. They were kind of acquaintances. And Melanie and Lori went to a conference, and Melanie testified to witnessing Lori and Chad's first meeting. And, you know, it's a reminder that at this time, both of them are married to other people. And Melanie describes a clear attraction and even describes it as flirty. So one of the things I found most interesting from Melanie's testimony was when she described how Lori told her that Lori and Chad had been married in previous lives. She shared with me that he told her that they had been married in another time period. And did she tell you what she believed with regard to that?

period. And did she tell you what she believed with regard to that? She did believe that. She had already had the belief system that this multiple lives, as they would call it, she'd already believed that before she physically met him. I mean, I'm scratching my head here as I listen to this. Richie, prosecutors have said that Lori and Chad had religious beliefs about the end of the world. What do they mean by that? Yes, Melanie testified that Lori told her that she and Chad had an important role in the end of times. She also described them having a light and dark scale where they could actually tell if somebody was light or dark. They described that people could be possessed by an evil spirit. And one of those people was Lori's husband at the time, Charles Vallow.

Chad let her know that Charles Vallow was taken over by an evil spirit. And that was the first time she had heard of it. And then, you know, that made him dark, according to them. Melanie continues to talk about how she was involved in these castings that Laurie would, according to her, gather groups together and try to actually cast out the evil spirit that was inhabiting people's bodies. So one of these spirits, they gave a name Ned, that was supposed to have taken over her husband, Charles. The first time they were able to, they thought they were able to cast out this first spirit that took over Charles's body, whose name was Ned. When that spirit left, they weren't sure how it worked. And so after they believed Ned left, then they would see that Charles was still alive.

And then they would come up with another idea that may be another spirit. And then they come up with another name that all that spirit was the one that took over his body. Here we are having discussions about spirits, rating system, zombies, which we'll get to more in a second, because I want to just remind listeners at this point, Charles Ballot was killed July 2019 by Lori's brother, Alex Cox, who claimed self-defense. Prosecutors say Chad's wife, Tammy Daybell, died of asphyxiation in October 2019. And Richie, this is where we come back to zombies. Chad and Lori married after both spouses had died. We heard a lot of testimony that Chad and Lori believe certain people were zombies. Prosecutors questioned Melanie about it, didn't they?

As a part of Melanie's testimony, she described how Lori and Chad would use the term zombie for people that ultimately they would want gone. Did Lori deem Charles a zombie? Yes. Did Lori refer to Tammy Daybell as a zombie? I believe so. She probably used that word, but I'm not 100% sure. Did she refer to Tammy as being possessed? Yeah. Did she refer to Tammy as being possessed? Yeah. Yeah.

Did she refer to Tylee as a zombie? Yes. Did she refer to JJ as a zombie? Yes. Melanie also testified that months before police found the children buried on Chad's property, when they were still searching for them, that Lori and Chad tried to get her to tell police that JJ was with her all along. Melanie describes getting a phone call from

Chad informing her that the police were looking for JJ and that if the police called her to not answer. And then later, Melanie gets a phone call from Lori and Lori informs Melanie that she told the police that Melanie had JJ with her in Arizona. Melanie does lie to police, but she clearly over time felt very guilty about it. So she decides to call Lori and Chad recording the conversation. She secretly records it and she confronts Chad and Lori about where JJ is. I asked Chad the other day, I was like, hey, you know, where is JJ? And he said, for my my security he didn't want me to know so is there a reason I should be in danger to know where he is? No, it's his danger. It's the danger that there's people after me.

Okay. If you knew that puts you in a danger. Well just in a bad position. Yeah, bad position. Yeah, a bad position. Everybody, if they don't know anything, then they don't have to say they know. Right, so you're just worried. Okay.

I'm just going to keep him protected. So at this point, Lori reiterates that JJ is safe, but she won't say where he is. And this really starts to raise suspicion. I think on both ends here, it seems like no one is believing each other. And I think the next clip really highlights this. Let's take a listen. This is of Lori Vallow now speaking to Melanie.

You know, if you're recording this conversation for the police or whatever, I don't know what your intention is on this phone call, but all my heart and i have forever and i will always see you i appreciate those words but if you really love me you wouldn't have told the police that i had jay-jay with me that's not that's not what a friend does i mean that just makes me look weird and it just it's not safe for me. That doesn't look good. I mean, you had to think of my welfare if you love me. I do. And I did exactly what I felt the Lord was instructing me to do. And I appreciate you and I love you.

And I won't do anything to harm you. And you can have all of this confirmed to you by the Lord. So Melanie eventually told police she actually hadn't seen JJ in months and gave authorities the recording she made of this conversation. Richie, before we get on to Friday, April 14th of testimony, what stands out to me there is this is a phone call among friends and Lori very quickly believes that this is being recorded, which just seems strange. Yeah, it's very interesting when you listen to the phone call in its entirety, because it starts off friendly.

And then the tone of the call, as Melanie continues to question them about where JJ is, shifts pretty quickly. Yeah, this group who had allegedly been planning for the end of times very intimately suddenly, at least as I kind of take away from this call, turns on each other. Let's move on now to Friday, April 14th, another big day for the prosecution. Yes, there was an introduction of a lot of texts and emails between many of the key players in this case, Chad Daybell, Lori, Alex Cox, and then also Lori's previous husband, Charles Vallow, who you'll remember was shot by Alex the summer before the children disappeared. It's important to note that after this case concludes,

Lori will be facing conspiracy to commit murder charges in that case in Arizona for Charles's death. So prosecutors introduced these texts, which revealed that her husband Charles believed he had caught Chad and Lori in an affair. And he even, you could see in the text messages, contacts Chad Daybell's wife, Tammy Daybell, a couple times via email. And it's not clear if she got them. It doesn't seem that she responded. But shortly after Charles's death, there are texts between Chad and Lori, where it appears she's learning or has just learned that she will not be receiving a $1 million life insurance policy for Charles. it appears actually went to his sister, Kate Woodcock. So here is Detective Nathan Duncan, and he's actually reading these text exchange between

Chad and Lori. Lori responded to Chad, Nope, he can change it anytime he wants. He's the agent, and anyone can change to beneficiary anytime with their own signature. I'm thinking it must be K. Chad sent Lori a message. It will be interesting if he got it changed after he had two bullets in his chest. Was there an additional message located? Yes. On 7-18-2019 at 12- hours, Lori Cinch had a message. So I talked to the insurance company. He changed it in March. So it was probably Ned before we got rid of him. They can't tell me to who, of course, but it's done. I'll still get the $4,000 a month from SS. still get the $4,000 a month from SS. It's interesting because in those texts,

Laurie seems to be referring to Ned, that evil spirit that supposedly took over Charles. And this is also kind of where we're getting a better sense of a possible motive. It sounds like that life insurance policy may have played a big role in Charles Ballot's death. Yes. So that seems to be what prosecutors might be implying in including this. And it fits pretty well into their argument that money was a big motive in Lori Vallow's alleged crimes. What other testimony did we hear last Friday? So a big person that testified was Zulema Pastenas, who is Alex Cox's wife. She'd actually married him just a couple weeks before he died. And she testified largely as an insider to Chad and Lori's alleged extremist religious beliefs. She seems to corroborate, as Melanie Gibb has, their belief that people could be taken over by dark spirits. And one particular part of her testimony that gives an insight is that she describes that Laurie believed a way to prevent someone's body from being reentered by a spirit would be to either bind them or burn them, which is really chilling,

considering that JJ was bound with all that duct tape and that Tylee's remains were so severely burned. Very haunting. So Zulema helping possibly connect some dots here for the prosecution. Did Zulema have any other insight into her husband, Alex Cox? So yes, Zulema testified that Lori and Chad seemed to have convinced Alex that he had a divine mission to protect Lori. And remember, Alex told police that he had shot and killed Charles Vallow earlier that summer in self-defense and largely to protect her. Zulema goes on to talk about a conversation she had with Alex five months after that, where he makes this alarming statement indicating that he felt that

Lori and Chad might be making him their quote-unquote fall guy. Ultimately, what did he say? He was very quiet and unresponsive. And then he said, I think I'm being their fall guy. Meaning? And what did you say? I said, fall guy for what? What is it that you have done? What have you done that you would be the fall guy for?

It was like I kept pressuring him, and I was so frustrated because he wasn't answering me. So I would walk away, and he would say something, and then I would come back, and then I would pressure him again. And then he said, one of the times when I was walking away from him, he said, Suema, either I am a man of God or I am not. And then Alex passed away the next day. He passed away the next day.

Richie, it seems like Alex Cox will loom large over this trial. And I wonder what could this mean for the prosecution's case since he has passed away? mean for the prosecution's case since he has passed away? So that's a big point. Alex appears to be, according to the prosecution, at the center of this murder case. And part of their challenge, the defense in their opening was very clear that they want the jury to focus on what Lori did and not what Alex or anyone else did. What can we expect in the next week of this trial? It will be interesting to see who else testifies. What we do know is Zulema will continue her testimony.

And then after that, since the witness list has been sealed by the judge, we'll just have to see. Our team at 48 Hours will be reporting on the Lori Vallow Daybell trial. We plan to bring you the latest coverage and analysis throughout the trial exclusively on the 48 Hours podcast. In the meantime, be sure to follow and listen to 48 Hours wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Richie, thanks so much for debriefing us. We're going to check back in with you soon. Yes, thank you so much for having me, Jonathan. It'll be interesting to see what else happens in this trial. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey. Did you know that the movie Candyman

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